Viva Las Vegas 2013 Anniversary Trip

Wow it’s been a while since I’ve posted here!  I just haven’t had a free moment to even compile my thoughts on what to write about.  We just completed a trip to Las Vegas and I thought I would wait a few days to write up my trip post, especially since there was so many lives affected in OK during the storms this weekend.  It just didn’t seem right to blab about our fun while there are so many people hurting right now.  My thoughts and prayers are with those affected by the storms.

I’m going to take a little bit of a different stance on my trip post this time around and instead of giving you a play by play, I thought I would just list some highlights an lowlights.  This makes our…14th, maybe 15th, maybe 16th….oh hell, I don’t know how many trips we’ve taken to Vegas in the past 12 years but this is how we usually celebrate our anniversary and this year was no different.

HIGHLIGHTS:

- The Mirage:  Every time we pull up in that front drive, it feels like home. Walk in and you get hit with that coconut smell that we are all too familiar with.  Yes, it’s changed a bit throughout the years but overall it’s still the same Mirage.  We had a flawless check in.  It was early and even though we really wanted a strip view, we really wanted to get to the room more so we agreed to a roof view room on the 2nd floor (even tho the agent offered a strip view if we wanted to wait until later)

Ugly fish behind the Mirage front desk

- MyVegas: Playing the heck out of the MyVegas Facebook game really paid off.  We got 2 free show tickets (more on that later), $50 in credit for Monte Carlo dining (more about that too), BOGO buffet at Mirage (more coming) and 2 free shark reef passes.  We didn’t end up using the shark passes, as we didn’t have time to go all the way down to Mandalay Bay this trip.  Wonder if I can get my points back?  Overall, not a bad deal for playing a game!

- Social Rewards: Between my husband and I, we had over $100 in Total Reward credits that we used for food while we were there that I racked up on socialrewards.com.  It covered some free Starbucks, a dinner and a lunch!  Eating for free never gets old.

- The Food: We ate some good food this time around and only had one not-so-good meal.  On arrival day we had lunch at BLT Burger, and I had a salad (I’m a vegetarian) which was yummy.  My husband had a burger (go figure) and he said it was good.  The prices are high but that’s what you get in Vegas.  No more $3 meals on the strip anymore!

We also had a BOGO coupon for dinner at Hash House A Go-Go inside the “new” Quad.  Man, you need a map or GPS to find it now that they are remodeling.  It’s up on the second floor hidden out of sight.  Seeing this place on Man Vs. Food and Diners Drive Ins and Dives, my husband had to see that 15″ pancake in person.  I had a portobello “burger” which was just ok but the pancake was amazing.  Word to the wise…don’t ask for any “special” alterations to your meal.  Mine came with goat cheese and I can’t stomach goat cheese so I asked the server if they could substitute another kind of cheese.  He said “We don’t do substitutes but I can tell the chef to leave the cheese off”  I was like “oooookkkkkaaaaayyy….???”  He looked all serious and said “Yeah, our chef is pretty strict on the way he makes things”.  Whatever dude.  We used Total Rewards points to pay for dinner so it was free!

Must be the “strict” chef

15″ pancake

my portobello burger (no cheese of course)

Our $50 dining credit was used at Monte Carlo’s Diablos Cantina.  All the times I’ve walked by this place and never knew it was actually part of the MC casino.  I had a vegetarian burrito and my husband had the street tacos.  It was soooo good.  I couldn’t finish my burrito and I regret not eating it all!  The chips and salsa are to die for as well.  Credit very well used.  Not really a highlight but while we were eating, but right after my husband ordered his “street tacos”, we witnessed a tourist getting a street taco of her own.  This older lady tripped while crossing the street and face-planted (literally) onto the pavement.  She busted her forehead open and had to be taken by ambulance to get checked out.  She seemed to be ok and in good spirits but what a crappy way to spend your Vegas vacation!!  Poor thing!

yummy veggie burrito

“street” tacos

More of our Total Rewards points were used at Toby Keith’s inside Harrahs on the way to catch the monorail.  I always like this place.  Warning…all the girls wear ass-less pants.  We got quite a shock as the hostess turned around to lead us to our table.  My husband was like “hello!”  (no, no picture here) I had another salad and my husband had another burger which looked to be so juicy it was falling apart all over the place.  Another free meal.

-”Love” at the Mirage:  We’ve seen this before from further back but this time thanks to MyVegas we viewed it from the 2nd row.  Total value of the tickets was $340.  Again, for free.  It was completely different seeing it from that point of view, I noticed things I never did before and it was neat to be able to closely watch the performers expressions etc..  Overall I would say that if it is your first time seeing this show (or any Cirque show) it’s best to see it from seats that are further back.  You don’t get to completely take it all in from up close since so much is always going on all around you (and above you!).  I could watch the opening act every minute for the rest of my life!

Love

our seats section 108 row D

-The Billboard Music Awards at MGM: Our trip dates put us there while they were having the awards.  I jumped on some $75 tickets and we really enjoyed it.  Friends and family say it came out like a train wreck on TV but live it was pretty awesome.  There really is no other place you can ever see so many performers at one time, in one place.  I am a Justin Bieber fan (I have a teen daughter) so I won’t say too much about the debacle of his Milestone award…other than I think he was totally disrespected and especially watching his facial expressions now up close on the replays — he was really shocked and confused.  He reacted like any kid would and yes, he’s still a kid so I think that was completely uncalled for.  I had to hold back from punching some fat ugly old man two rows down from us who was participating in the booing.  I thoroughly enjoyed his performances and that kid puts on a good show.

One funny thing was that the girl sitting next to me had to have been no more than 15 years old and from Brooklyn — a fan of Nikki Manaj — who, in a heartbeat I would boo her skanky ass off stage.  She’s just nasty and has no talent (nor class) whatsoever (I know, my opinion) .  When she came on this girl lept up out of her seat and started gheto rapping…flapping her arms around and all screaming (in her best New York accent laden ghetto gangster voice) “Yeah!  That’s how we do it!”.  My husband warned me I better keep my opinions of Nikki Manaj to myself or else that girl was going to seriously kick my ass.

We arrived at the MGM at 3pm and left around 830…how they got 10k people in and out of that arena is beyond me.  As we were walking through the casino about 30 minutes after the show, a tall guy was leading a smaller guy around by the back of his neck fairly quickly.  He had a jacket over his head (the smaller guy).  They walked right in front of us.  As they kept walking a mob of people started to chase them….so we did too.  They disappeared into a club.  I’m pretty sure that was either Justin Bieber or Bruno Mars by his size.  Of course, I had to text my daughter and tell her JB had just walked right in front of me!  To which she replied in teenage text-speak “0.0″

Just for the record — Christina was not lip syncing.  I watched my video and then the video of the broadcast and noticed that they edited it for TV by playing her recording over her real live voice.  What a terrible thing to do.  She sounded great live and it was totally unnecessary!  Now, JLo, Selena Gomez and Taylor Swift?  Yeah I think they lip synced live too…it sounded way too perfect to be live.

Please excuse the blurry pics and video.  We were in section 205…WAAAY back there but I tried to zoom in.  I got tired of captioning the pics…I figure you can tell who they are..

From our seats

MGM Arena

Tracy Morgan

Shania Twain

Selena Gomez

SG

SG

Taylor Swift

TS

TS

TS

Selena Gomez

PSY

PSY

Madonna

TS

Miley!

JB’s first award

JB

Ed Sheeran

JB

Ed Sheeran ( I loved his song)

so pretty!

JLo in her muppet suit

JLo

JLo

JLo

JLo

Beaming

Wiz Kalifa maybe??

the Biebs

David Guetta’s pretty awesome

Prince…what’s up with the fro dude?

-The weather: We had sunny skies and a cool breeze the entire trip, it was amazing.

Bellagio

-The drinks: I don’t know what was up this trip but we had great cocktail service.  Wherever we played, a CW soon arrived and kept the drinks going.  I always tip $1 a drink but in past trips, can never get service!  My Mojito at the Wynn was by far one of the best ever and I enjoyed quite a few tasty black russians at the Mirage.  Even my husband, who never drinks, kept throwing back Coronas and margaritas.

-Our cabbie on the ride back to the airport: We had the nicest cab driver take us back to the airport.  I always fear of getting long-hauled but he assured us that wouldn’t happen and it didn’t.  We were at the airport in less than 15 minutes and it cost $14.  I gave him a $20.

More pics:

Hell yeah, I love Starbucks, especially Starbucks in VEGAS!

Bellagio Conservatory Pictures

We saw Alan at Caesars…

Palazzo

Now for the

LOWLIGHTS

-The gambling: Have we ever had a winning trip?  Yeah, back in 2002.  Never since.  My husband is a slot lover (that is S-L-O-T lover…in case you read wrong) and loves to chase those bonuses.  Sometimes it works out, sometimes it doesn’t.  After the 1st night, we were $200 into the next day’s bankroll.  Lost it all that day too.  He played a bit of blackjack but would eventually lose the lead and be back to square one.  We attempted the Lion’s Share machine at MGM and also the Majestic Lions which paid out for us last time ($300) but no banana this time.  The third and fourth days were much better….and we actually came home with 1/4 of our bankroll still in tact. I got some good bonuses on video and took a picture of the $100 my husband won on one of those big machines inside the Flamingo.  Having all the free stuff this trip surely helped our bankroll last a lot longer than it would’ve.

I have a cockatoo at home so I was glad to win $15 on them on this machine!

Here’s my favorite bonus of the trip…on the Aladdin machine.  Madde me $80.  I also got about $90 off of “Gone with the Wind” but my camera was dead so I didn’t get the recording of it.  Got a lot more small wins on my YouTube channel.

-Cravings buffet at the Mirage: Yuck, it was terrible.  We had a BOGO from MyVegas and I don’t even think it was worth the $30 we paid for both.  The food was cold and bland.  The desserts were great tho…always love bread pudding…and yes, it was extra runny that night just like I like it!  Our server was really nice so we gave her a good tip.

-The assholes that booed Justin Bieber (oh wait, did I already say that?)

So I think that is about it for this trip.  Next one not until next year unless we get the itch before then but seeing as how we have Disney coming up in less than a month with the family…it’s going to take a while for me to financially recuperate!

One more pic — a mommy/daughter DON’T….witnessed as we were walking out of the award show.  Great parenting example right here!

no, just no mom

Allergies Chap My Ass

And my nose…. I HATE TEXAS ALLERGIES.  Did I mention that I hate springtime in Texas??

I’m sitting here suffering so much right now a Benadryl overdose wouldn’t even help me at this point.

That’s all, I just wanted to bitch, whine and moan.  Mission accomplished.  ACHOO!

This Easter

Last year on the Thursday before Easter, my dad fell from a tree about 50 feet up and broke his neck.  He spent Easter and the weeks after recovering from extensive surgery.  The neurosurgeon said he’d never seen anything like it — the broken bones at the base of his skull just missed severing his spinal cord by less than a millimeter.  Add that to the fact that my mom drove him to the hospital that night with one hand basically holding his head up over his shoulders….my dad to this day is a walking miracle.  That one experience taught me a lot about what it means to be grateful and not take life for granted.  In one second, it can be gone.

 

So this Easter will be better by far.  And while it’s supposed to rain, I’ll spend my morning with Him:

Then afterwards, I’ll be eating some of these:

I’m vegetarian remember?

And play a little bit of music from:

On my new:

Taylor….yeeeah buddy!

Drinking a little bit of:

Best beer evah

While my dog:

Well I really don’t know what Koda will be doing but this was just too cute of a picture not to put in a blog post….so there you go.

The only thing bad about Easter Sunday is that the next day is Monday and I have a long work week ahead of me!  Right now, I’ll just try to enjoy my long weekend (I’m off tomorrow) and look forward to my brussel sprouts and Moose Drool!

Have a Happy Easter friends!

Lazy Sunday

Happy Sunday friends!  Hope you are getting some relaxation in today.  I woke up late and found myself addicted to this show “The Haunted” on the Destination America channel.  That’s some creepy stuff!  The lady on the show said “then the voice said…you are all gonna die…” and at that exact moment my dogs leaped up and started barking crazy while running around the house.  I thought to myself….that’s it, I better find something constructive to do!  So instead of tackling this mountain of laundry I need to do, here I am writing a blog post.

I wasn’t sure what to write about today because not much has been going on but I thought I might tell you about the couple of “adventures” we have planned for the fam within the next upcoming months.  My husband and I couldn’t go to long without our Vegas fix so we have another trip planned in May too celebrate our 14th wedding anniversary.  We scored a great deal on a room at the Mirage with our players club benefits.  I’m sure I’ll have a fun trip report to post when we get back.  Could this possibly be the trip where we win the BIG ONE?  I guess we shall see….

Then, in June we are spending our family vacation at Disney World once again.  This will make our 7th or 8th trip since 2003. It could possibly be our last for a while since the kids are getting older and I see visions of exuberant expenses due to having two teenagers so I seriously doubt we will be able to afford it after this year.  Not to mention, Disney’s prices have gone up and their discounts have gone down.  A sign of the times I guess.

I just recently started working for an upscale hotel chain.  We have an awesome hotel in downtown Boston.  Because of my son’s love for the Xbox game Assassin’s Creed where the setting is in the old Paul Revere days of Boston’s history, we are planning a weekend in August to show him the sights.  I’m most looking forward to eating at Faneuil Hall and staying at this hotel that is supposedly haunted….

Lastly (so far) In September, Mumford and Sons are coming to a city in Oklahoma about 3 hours from here for a stopover on their “Gentlemen of the Road” tour.  I will be attending this 1.5 day music festival with my niece and I will be camping for the first time in my life.  I would camp out in the middle of the arctic tundra with no clothes on for a chance to see Mumford and Sons live but I won’t lie and say I’m looking forward to that part of it….it will be an experience.  I’m still trying to find out how I can keep my electronics charged the whole time so I can have pictures and video to share when we get back.

So there you have it.  The Dockfam travel schedule for this year.  I’ll be sure to take lots of pics and if you go ahead and add me on Instagram and YouTube, you will see my pics and videos there.  I put all of our vacation videos on YouTube and I’m trying to be better about Instagram sharing.  And if you add me, I will follow you back.

Have a great lazy Sunday and I’ll be back soon!

It’s Been a Year!

I just realized that I wrote my very first blog post on March 7 of last year.  Dockfam Adventures is officially one year old!  Happy 1st Birthday to me!

cupcakes…because I love me some cupcakes

Memories of Time Gone By

Well it is Saturday and a horrible migraine woke me up during the night.  I tried really hard to stay in bed and not get up (in fear of the pain that would hit me when I did) but it was going to hurt either way so I decided to just make my way from the bed to the couch.  I get these damn headaches at least once a week (most recently last Sunday) and more often than not they hit me on weekend.  This in a way is both good and bad.  Good because at least I’m not getting one when I have to work and bad because the weekends are when I try to get everything done.  Shopping, cleaning, laundry…you name it.  When I can hardly hold my head up, these tasks can prove to be pretty impossible.  So here I sit writing a blog post and watching my weeks’ recordings of “The Chew” — which seems to be one of the few things I can do without hurting too much at the moment.  I hate this.

I had a pretty cool experience last Saturday night…I visited my high school to see their spring musical performance.  My cousin’s daughter was starring as the Wicked Witch in their performance of “The Wizard of Oz” (she did a fabulous job by the way….Margaret Hamilton eat your heart out!)  Back in the day, I was a theater nerd.  Most of my free time in high school was spent in that auditorium, on that stage and in the dance hall.  The only year I didn’t participate in the shows was my sophomore year, when I went through a bit of a rebellious stage and when my grades started to slip a bit — my mom wouldn’t “allow” me to participate.  That sobered me up real quick and I got back into it the next year.

I went to a private, Catholic jr high / high school.  At the time, the school was from grades 7 to 12…so a greater part of my adolescence was spent at that school and I can’t tell you how many memories….both good and bad….were made at that place.  It would only seem true that when I walked through the doors last week for the first time in 18 years…..it was nearly and emotional moment.  I say nearly because I was with my daughter, my niece and my sister-in-law and I didn’t want to embarrass them by becoming a wimpy, blubbering mess.

The school was built in 1961 and although I’m sure there have been major changes since then…not much of the main building had really changed in the last 18 years, give or take a few mew pictures in the hallway.  God forbid they spend any money fixing up that auditorium; it still stands as it did when it was built in 1961. The gym and football areas have been given a major overhaul since I graduated…there are those tuition dollars going to work.

school entrance looking exactly how it did in the early 90′s

As I stood in line for a soda at intermission, I saw the wall statue of the Virgin Mary….whose feet got stuck in my pants when I was in 7th grade…and it made me giggle.  No really crazy story there, I was just sitting underneath her waiting to go into the auditorium for our musical performance that year and when I stood up, the holy mother’s feet got caught in my jean’s waist band and proceeded to come completely off of the wall…laying squarely on my back.  All I could do was stand there petrified while balancing the statue carefully as to not drop her until someone heard my cries for help and put her back in her place.  Needless to say there was a huge gap in the line and I was late getting on stage.

I glanced around the auditorium and noticed that pictures adorned both walls, forever immortalizing our years of musical mayhem at the Catholic school.  Well, maybe not forever…but at least for the next few years until they run out of room and start retiring some of them.  The show picture from our freshman year “The Sound of Music” (in which I played a nun) was already taken down.  However, I did try to get a few shots of the ones still hanging (pardon the glare…they are pictures of pictures):

Junior Year musical, “Bye Bye Birdie” in which I was in the chorus one weekend and the role of “Kim MacAfee” the other weekend. This pic was taken on my chorus weekend

Senior Year fall play “The Man who Came to Dinner” in which I played “June” the daughter.

By far my favorite, senior year spring musical “Annie Get Your Gun” in which I was an Indian, a towns person and the affluent “Mrs. Adams” during the ballroom scene

Along with these shows, I had been on that stage for numerous dance programs, choir programs and drama and speech competitions.  Hours of hard work, rehearsals, building sets, sweat and tears.  So many memories made there and it hadn’t changed a bit.  For a fleeting moment I felt as if I were 17 again and all the reminders of adulthood were gone. I saw myself on stage again…thought about my friends and all of the fun we had.  As I was skipping down memory lane during the show I noticed that the kids’ voices were coming out loud and clear, I leaned over to my sister-in-law and said “they have microphones now!!” to which she replied….”Yes Jenn, and we have cell phones now too!”. Geesh.  My youthful spirit went back into hiding as I was reminded of exactly how long it had been and how old I was now.  18 years is a very long time!

A Most Embarrassing Adventure

As I sit here drinking coffee and watching a million-year old episode of CSI: Las Vegas, I thought it would be a good time to tell you about what happened on my first night in Omaha.  Talk about embarrassing!

After getting in around 10am, grabbing lunch and spending the rest of the afternoon at the office….my new boss and I decided to go out and have dinner.  Knowing that I like to play slot machines, we went to a casino right on the Iowa border.  We decided we would eat there and play a little.  Before leaving the hotel I came down with a migraine….which later on I realized it was because I was hungry…but I took a couple of Excedrins anyway and washed it down with a cup of coffee.

Once we got to the casino, both of us forgot about eating.  Now, I had just bought an electronic “cigarette” starter kit (which is just a vaporizer — I stopped smoking 10 months ago but still crave one every day) and I brought them with me.  Each little vial of flavored vapor liquid is 18mg of nicotine, which is equal to a pack of cigarettes.  In the 3 hours or so that we were there, I got a bit carried away and vaped a whole vial.  That….along with the Excedrin and coffee on an empty stomach was NOT a good mix.
I got a nice bonus round on a Monopoly Party Train penny slot and ended up losing ony $13 total of my allotted bankroll for this impromtu casino trip.  Shortly after I started to get hot flashes and feel really sick.  I literally sat outside in the 20 degree weather with no coat on and couldn’t even feel the cold.  I waited for my boss and when she came out we talked about getting something to eat finally.

At this point, I felt like I was going to hurl but I wasn’t about to let it fly in the car!  I was like…I got this, I got this…I’m ok…I’m ok…. but by the time we got about 10 minutes away I couldn’t hold it any more.  She pulled into a gas station and thank goodness I made it to the bathroom in time.  There went lunch and the diet coke I had at the casino.  Once I felt better I got some crackers (almost $4 at a gas station!  wtf?) and tried to hold back any more that might be making it’s way to the surface.

For a few minutes I really thought I would be ok and we talked about going somewhere to eat.  About 5 minutes later — yeah, nope…Vesuvius was erupting again.  I asked my boss to pull to the side and almost before she could stop the car I opened the door and let ‘er blow.  I think I might’ve even got some on the back of the car….it was windy.  Once back in the car I decided it was probably best that I just go back to the hotel.

When I got to my room it was a non-stop barf-fest to the point where there was really nothing left.  Laying in the bed not able to move or lift my head….my heart was pounding so fast I was having visions of what my family’s reactions would be when they were told I had a heart attack in Omaha, NE while on a business trip.  No joke…it was that freaky.  I slept a solid 9 hours that night and I don’t think I moved once.  Thank goodness I felt better in the morning but I think it was the first time in at least 13 years that I didn’t have a cup of coffee before heading into work.

Can you imagine?  My first business trip with my new boss at my new job and I was throwing up like a drunken girl gone wild on spring break.  Although, there was no “wild” or “spring break” involved and we were definitely not in Florida.  I hadn’t even had anything to drink! (alcohol-wise) I joked with her about it later…I told her I was a pathetic date and I’m sorry it probably felt like she was driving around with one of her children.

Leave it to me, I swear I couldn’t believe it happened.  I don’t even think my boss ate anything that night either because of me.  You definitely can’t take me anywhere!

A Little Bit from OMA

Well friends, this isn’t really a bounce back blog post but since the title of this email is Dockfam “Adventures” ….and I am in the midst of a trio I thought I’d pop in for a quickie. I apologize in advance for any typos and lack of photos since I’m posting from my iPad.

Anyhoo, after the holidays I had a blessing come upon me and I snagged a great new job. Part of my on boarding process was for me to visit one of the offices that just happens to be in Omaha, NE. I have never, ever been to the American Midwest. All I knew is that it is cold and our lovely Mother Nature had just blown through there the week prior dumping inches of snow upon it’s inhabitants. I’m not a fan of cold….or snow! But alas, on Monday I landed in Omaha.

It’s nice here….cold as hell but nice. While flying in I noticed the lack of traffic on the roadways and how desolate it seemed compared to the Dallas area. There are no big chain restaurants or shopping choices nearby and I’ve only seen one Starbucks since I arrived. The people here are friendly and warm…they give you that small town feeling of being welcome. One thing is for sure, they love living here and wouldn’t go anywhere else!

I’ve only been to very touristy destinations in my past so even though my time working here is brief (I fly home tomorrow) it has been enjoyable. It is a nice change to the hustle and bustle of living in a busy city suburb and being able to get to bed before 10 for the last few nights has been amazing!

I’ve got so much more to share with you all but I will attempt to catch up soon. My husband called tonite with a bird crisis because my cockatoo decided to play Houdini and escape his cage….and refusing to go back in. I’ll have that one to figure out when I get back….how to escape proof his cage and then it will be time to review the high school enrollment papers that my son received this week. It looks as if enrolling for high school is just as complicated these days as college registration…I’m not sure if I’m ready for all of this. I might just stay in Nebraska!

Back…..but not quite

Just a very short post to say that I have not dropped off the face of the earth….not yet anyway.  I had to take a break from blogging to get some things taken care of in the midst of a very busy time.  I’m still alive….exciting things happening…changes and new beginnings.  All of which I will write about soon but I still need another week or so. 

So, if my blogosphere friends are still out there hanging on with me, be patient.  I swear I will be back very soon….and thank you for waiting!!

Muppet Monday Cancelled